


Soul Eater

by FireEye



Category: Ultima
Genre: Bound Together, Gen, trope bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 02:27:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEye/pseuds/FireEye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Vesper, after the Isle of Fire, the Avatar adjusts to sharing her space with a daemon-possessed blackrock sword that won't let her put it down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soul Eater

“This is fucking ridic-...” Warm water cascaded over her head, plastering her hair to her face and in black rivulets along her neck and leaving streaks in the gray ash along her back.  She sputtered, dashing it out of her eyes with one hand while the other gripped the blackrock sword’s hilt.  “Ridiculous.”

“Ah, there’s my old friend,” Jaana remarked.  The cheer to her voice only served to tighten the muscles in the Avatar’s shoulders.  “I hardly recognize thee.”

“Need I remind you,” she replied flatly, “I am now permanently armed.”

“‘Tis rather difficult to miss, mark thee me.” The druid slathered a concoction of herbal lather into Alexis’ hair.  As she worked it to the roots, she traced waterlogged clump of strands along to its end, where it slipped from her fingers.  “Thou wilt needest to trim thy hair soon.  Lest thee dost plan to grow it out a bit this time.”

“Yes, _Mom_.”  Alexis twisted her hands about the hilt of the sword.  Her hair was the last of her worries.  “I think I’ll have Arcadion do it.”

“That is more like it!” Smiling, Jaana directed, “Head forward, close thy eyes.  Thy daemon shalt earn his keep yet.”

Alexis jerked her head up to argue, only to be drenched under a second bucketful of water.  Arcadion, for his part, remained silent.

~*~

Still damp, but a fair sight more presentable, Alexis padded down the stairs to the commons below.

Save for half the compliment of her adventuring party, the dining hall was empty.  Spark sat on the end of the square table, practicing his daggers.  The Avatar glanced at the targetboard on the far wall, and offered him a high-five in appraisal of his progress, which he met with enthusiastic glee.  Grinning, she slid onto the bench behind him.  Anchored by one arm about the hilt of the shadow sword propped up beside her, she lolled forward on the table under Iolo’s discerning gaze.

“Kat!” Katrina lifted her attention from the maps between them, and Alexis purred, “My dearest friend.  Bravest of the brave, truest of the true, most loving of the loving, and, lest I forget, humblest of the humble.”

“Flattery will get thee nowhere,” Katrina replied, a wry smile gracing her lips.  “What is it thou needest, Avatar?”

“Dupre’s...” Alexis pulled herself upright, “kinda... um.”  She jabbed her thumb over her shoulder, then splayed her fingers.  “ _Yeah_ , so, anyway, I was wondering if maybe you’d be up for some exercise.  Practice.  Bringing great aid to the realm by beating me out of my pulpy couch potato shape, you know?”

“Thou dost wish to spar...” Katrina flicked her gaze to the sword that hadn’t – that _couldn’t_ – leave the Avatar’s grasp, “with thy soul-eating blade?”

The Avatar’s mouth opened, then snapped shut.

“When you put it that way...” she passed the hilt between her hands once, and again, then leaned forward to rest her chin in her palm, “you’re right, that is a stupid idea.  I... haven’t been able to sleep recently and was thinking it might wear me down.  Forget it.”

Having arranged the maps into a stack, Iolo rolled them to fit in their casing, all the while eyeing the Avatar critically.  “When is the last time thou didst eat, Alexis?”

“I...” When the answer didn’t readily come to recollection, Alexis shrugged.  “I don’t know, day before yesterday – we got tangled up with those pirates on the coast, and I...”  Iolo’s expression darkened in response, and he pushed up from the bench.  Alexis tracked his movements as he stood and moved towards the hearth-fire.  “It slipped my mind, I guess.  I haven’t been hungry.”

She rubbed her eyes, seeking inward.  It was something to do with the Tests, maybe – but she simply felt... full.  Replete of energy.

Katrina glanced after Iolo as he bustled about the hearth, then to the Avatar.  Sucking in a breath, she rose to intercept Spark on his return from the targetboard.  Wrapping her arms around his shoulders, the shepherd ushered him up the stairs.

“Time for bed, lad.”  Shushing his protests, she chirped, “Come along.”

Iolo returned from the fire, setting a plate down in front of the Avatar before seating himself across from her.  Alexis’ hand slid from her chin to rest against her forehead, and she met Iolo’s gaze over the hearth-warmed rolls and twice-baked potatoes.  “You know, I’m really not that hungry.”

“Yet thou shouldst eat anyway.”  Smiling, Iolo laced his fingers together, resting them upon the table and twitching one knuckle out towards the plate.  “The last thing we would want is for thee to collapse.”

Alexis contemplated the food, then reached out, only to be held back by the sword’s guard.  Swapping it to her other side, she snatched a roll and ripped it in two.  Iolo’s smile deepened as she shoved the smaller half in her mouth.

“At least then I’d get some rest,” she remarked around a mouthful of bread.  Swallowing, she flicked her fingers skyward.  “Except maybe not.  I swear to God, it already tried to kill me in my sleep.”

“Why would I ever do such a thing, Master?” the sword trilled.

“I wonder,” the Avatar muttered, tearing off another piece of the roll, but recanted as Iolo’s eyes widened in concern.

“Alright, maybe _tried_ is too harsh.”  She clarified, “But I did wake up to find it jabbing me in the back.”

~*~

The sand shifted silently beneath the soles of her boots, but the rustle of her cloak against black steel gave her away.  Alexis leaned against the stone wall beside him, letting the blacksword fall at an angle with the tip at her feet and the hilt an arms length away.  Her breath turned to mist in the cold desert night, and she picked at a loose thread of her tunic listlessly.

“Do you think I didn’t think this through?”

Regarding her, Shamino mulled the question gravely.  “What dost thou think?”

“I think,” Alexis sighed, long and shaky with a hint of a scoff, “I didn’t think this through.”

“Then we are of one mind, my friend.”

The Avatar met his thin grin, with a twisted grimace of wry exasperation.

“Maybe I can bury it,” she said.  “Dig down deep enough, put a big rock on top, give it a few hundred years and it’ll be someone else’s problem.”

“Thou wouldst not,” the sword hissed.  The glow of the hilt’s gem illuminated her fingers.

“ _Try_ me.”

“Thou wouldst not,” Shamino agreed softly.  “T’was not only mere necessity for which thou didst break the mirror.”  His smile faded.  “What doth bother thee, truly?”

Alexis curled her arm inward, around the guard of the sword so that she could wrap her fingers around its hilt.   “I keep wondering if maybe it’s karma.”

“Karma?”

“Pride,” Alexis elaborated, curtly shoving the word past her teeth.

“ _Pride_ , Avatar?”

“I didn’t _have_ to finish the Test of Courage.  I had _nothing_ to prove.”

Shamino reflected upon this for a long moment.

“Sacrifice, mayhap,” he answered, looking to the moons.  “Dracothraxus was not part of the test as it was constructed, yet she didth have to be surmounted.  The daemon possesseth the only magic strong enough to do so.  To whatever end Erethian sought, for good or for ill, Exodus...” Shamino’s voice hitched, and dipped low in his throat,  “The Dark Core didth have to be banished.”

“You’re right,” Alexis conceded, but she shook her head wide.  Her chin dropped to her chest, her shoulders shaking with silent laughter.  “But I was still pissed that the stupid dragon got the better of me.”

They stood together in companionable silence, Shamino watching the moons low in the sky and Alexis the desert sands beneath her feet.  As Trammel neared the horizon, the ranger straightened, parting not with a word but a gentle squeeze to the woman’s shoulder before leaving her alone with her thoughts.

Except for the distinct chance that she would never be alone again.

Crossing her arms over the guard, Alexis stared down at the Ether Gem.  Trammel set, with Felucca still slow behind.

“You know,” the Avatar said, “I would be willing to find a way to set you free if I didn’t already know how much it’d bite me in the ass.”

“I am not certain there is a way, Master.” The gem grew dim for a moment’s reflection, before flickering back to life.  “Apart from thy death, of course, which would only serve to change the owner of my prison, not the circumstances by which I am bound.”

Alexis regarded the pulsing gem silently.  Since killing Dracothraxus, he sounded so much more _cheerful_.  Unnervingly so.

“This is a fair improvement over my last arrangement.”  A chill traveled up Alexis’ spine and she straightened, hands coming to rest upon the hilt.  Arcadion, naturally, didn’t notice.  _Couldn’t_ notice, bound within the gem as he was.  “Why, beyond my newfound freedom,” the daemon purred, “I can even feel a modicum of sensation through the bond we now share.  The ocean breeze brushing against thy face, the blackrock steel beneath thy fingertips...”

 _Shit_.

“...the blood of thy enemy upon my blade and thy hands.”

Arcadion grew silent, no doubt savoring the memory.  Alexis’ grip on the sword’s hilt tightened as Felucca dipped low on the horizon.  No wonder she couldn’t sleep.

“Thou art a hero, Master; I can only imagine the volume of bodies that wilt come to lie at thy feet.” 

She _really_ hadn’t thought this through.

Not that there was anything to be done about it now.  It was one of those decisions she would simply have to live with.  With a glance to the moon disappearing over the desert, the Avatar hefted Arcadion over her shoulder, keenly aware of his soft sigh in her ear and the finely honed blackrock edge itching against her neck through her cloak collar.

A scabbard would be a fine start.

**Author's Note:**

> -I am forever uncertain if the game mechanic of the Black Sword flying back into the Avatar's hands if you put it down anywhere was literally supposed to be that s/he is bound magically to it and couldn't put it down, or if it's meant to represent a metaphorical covetousness that s/he finds it instead... precious. For the purposes of this fic and the trope bingo prompt, I assume the former, which is how I always took it before I started thinking about it. :)  
> -As I recall, Arcadion seems pretty resigned to the fact that he's your eternal slave in U7, so I went with that. Obviously he changes his mind later.  
> -The idea of the Av and Arcadion being able to cross-sensory somehow is inspired by how he HIJACKS YOUR BODY in the Lord British easter egg. Also he can fill your body with Mana. Seems to be a pretty deep connection you got going on.  
> -Most of which I took for granted and rarely thought about the mechanics of before writing this fic. XD


End file.
